Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting software with a simple user interface and solid functionality for invoicing, inventory, and project management. Zoho Books is best suited to small and medium businesses looking for an alternative to the enterprise-level software available. It also offers scalability through its several tiered plans, though the lower-cost options limit your functionality. Zoho also provides several avenues for customer service, making it simple to get the support you need when using the platform. Starting at $35 a month, which goes down to $17.50 per month for the first three months during the current promotion, QuickBooks offers four subscription plans ensuring users only pay for the features they need. Xero is an affordable cloud-based accounting software system that is highly rated among small businesses.
Buyers of this category look for specific customizable functions designed for them to meet their target requirements. For instance, Non-profit organizations looking for specific functionality such as fund accounting will belong to this group. They need software that can track the payment of donors and can let them know about it as an expense. Similarly, education institutes seek software which can track disbursement of financial aid. On the other hand construction companies look for software which can break down the cost as per projects. This section of an Account Management application handles inventory tasks including maximizing profits, minimizing depreciation costs, and avoiding overspending to keep the level intact as per requirement.
SMB accounting tools have become increasingly affordable in recent years, making them the preferred choice for most businesses. Small businesses may also only require bookkeeping software, which focuses on recording financial transactions via a general ledger and managing payroll. Since bookkeeping tools are more simplistic, these products may be easier for simpler businesses without accounting experience to learn and use. QuickBooks Online Advanced is a SaaS-based accounting software designed to scale with growing businesses.
- Some advanced financial reporting features let you schedule weekly, monthly or quarterly reports and automatically send it to specified email addresses.
- Xero, QuickBooks, FreshBooks, Sage and Zoho are among the best accounting software for businesses.
- With cloud-based software, products are leased rather than licensed, a more attractive option for smaller businesses with limited funds or short-term needs.
- Some can only capture receipts for expense tracking, some allow you to create and send invoices, and others have almost every feature the web-based software does.
- The cloud-based system makes it simple to share and collaborate on documents, and you also get the peace of mind that everything is stored and filed with security and 100% compliance in mind.
Remote Access With Cloud Software
Starting at $49.58 per month, Sage 50 offers some of the strongest reporting tools we encountered in our review. While its higher price point and lack of a free trial kept it off our best picks list, it’s still a viable option for businesses that thrive on data analysis for decision making. Managing your business finances with spreadsheets might work when you first start out, but it can soon become challenging and lead to errors. We’ve reviewed and tested leading solutions on the market and chose the best accounting software for your business. The platforms on this list can help you streamline the process of tracking your expenses and revenue, reduce manual errors and understand the financial health of your business at a glance.
Some of the commercial software may require consulting the vendor to install and configure them accordingly and have lengthy installation processes. “The ultimate goal of a business is for it to grow, so make sure that the accounting tool you pick can grow with your business,” Wilkinson said. FreshBooks offers coupon codes through certain partners, such as a 50 percent discount for four months of service that we found during our review.
Advanced Features
Your payment processor might automatically push new receivable entries to your accounting system. Your accounting software could share available funds with business intelligence systems. NetSuite is a great fit for global operations, supporting multi-currency transactions and local tax regulations out of the box. Like Intacct, NetSuite offers a drag-and-drop report builder called SuiteAnalytics. However, creating complex custom reports requires some degree of coding knowledge. We tested FreshBooks for ourselves and found report customization pretty basic; you can change and compare dates and switch from accrual to cash-based accounting.
Our Reviews
Unlike data stored on a hard drive, data in the cloud is typically not susceptible to being lost due to hardware malfunctions. Cloud-based accounting software is just like traditional accounting software with the exception that all the data is hosted on remote servers instead of the user’s desktop computer. An intuitive program that gives you access to a simple dashboard that displays charts to provide an overview of the current state of your company’s finances, automatic features and easy-to-use mobile apps are best. In 2021, Neat transitioned to a full-fledged bookkeeping software to help small business owners spend minutes, not hours, doing their books. Kashoo is a great choice for small business owners who want straightforward accounting software that is easy to set up. Xero is a great option for large teams making sense of deferred tax assets and liabilities and SMBs looking for accounting software that multiple team members can use.
How to choose the best accounting software for your business
Also known as software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud-based software adoption rates have increased over the past decade. In 2015, 76% of the buyers indicated a receptiveness to hosting their software externally, off-premise. It required me to enter my name, email address and mobile number, then choose a password. Unlike competitors, I had to also enter my credit or debit card information. This means that if I am not satisfied with the software, I have to manually cancel my subscription before the two-week free trial period or I will be charged the yearly rate of $200. However, they complain that it is not as easy to use on a Mac computer and the interface looks dated on these devices.
In addition to accounting software, Zoho offers more than 40 enterprise-level online applications to grow sales, market your business, communicate with teammates, provide customer service and more. Businesses that need an integrated business ecosystem will have a hard time finding a more robust business suite. QuickBooks Online is an industry leader in the accounting field, thanks to its strong feature set and scalability. In addition to core accounting capabilities, it has robust reporting and transaction tracking tools, invoicing capabilities, inventory management features and mobile app functionality.
